


The Aftermath

by Silvereye



Category: Guns of the Dawn - Adrian Tchaikovsky
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-16
Updated: 2019-12-16
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:06:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21812647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silvereye/pseuds/Silvereye
Summary: Emily and Cristan struggle back to Grammaine. The war is over and the world continues turning.
Relationships: Emily Marshwic/Cristan Northway
Comments: 5
Kudos: 7
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	The Aftermath

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ptolema](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ptolema/gifts).



Cook was the first person to see Emily and Northway back in Grammaine. It was a strange shard of normalcy, this simple fact that no matter what happened, Cook was still up and about before dawn.

"Ma'am –" she started.

Emily, much too far past exhaustion, held her free hand up to stop her. "I know. Don't say anything to anyone. Especially Mary or Alice. And bring breakfast to drawing room, please."

Cook gave them a long look, then nodded. "Alright, ma'am."

"You cannot hide me in your drawing room," Northway said when they were past the kitchen.

"I don't intend to," Emily answered. She didn't know _what_ she intended. But she knew that Tubal and Brocky had retreated back to the drawing room, because she could feel their worry brewing in that part of the house like a thunderstorm off the coast back in Levant. She couldn't figure this out on her own and those two men were the only reinforcements she had.

"There you are, you bloody woman!" Brocky said when they staggered past the doorway. Emily smiled despite herself. Brocky continued: "We were worried out of our minds…" He faltered when he saw she wasn't alone.

"Mr Northway," Tubal said with careful neutrality.

"Precise as always, Mr Salander," Northway said. He hissed a little when Emily dumped him in one corner of the sofa and heavily sat down in the other. Her legs were going to fall off any moment now.

"What happened?" Tubal asked.

"I intended to convince our patriotic friends to free Mr Scavian," Northway said smoothly, smiling past the pain. "They, however, were not convinced of my good intentions. Miss Marshwic did me a great favour in freeing me, although, I must inform you, not without casualties."

"What casualties?" Brocky demanded. "Marshwic is here and so are you. Don't tell me you count a black eye as a _casualty_."

"I do believe my ribs are worse. But no, this is not what I meant."

"The King was there," Emily said, because if they were going to spin lies for the entire world, including her closest friends, then she had to be a part of it as much as Northway.

"Don't tell me –" Tubal started and Northway cut him off.

"They were going to make an example of me. I am after all an arch-traitor who surrendered this town to Denlanders. Had our aspiring rebels been as proficient in shooting as everyone else in this room... but they were not. I don't think the man who intended to execute me had served in the army. He missed and there was ricochet."

"The King is dead," Emily said.

Brocky sat down. "Well," he said. "I'll be damned."

There was a long silence eventually interrupted by Cook bringing a large tray laden with food and tea. She set it down on the table wordlessly and left. Brocky looked around, grumbled under his breath and started handing around teacups and sandwiches.

"I suppose they will not hang Scavian now," Tubal said. "Unless they want to make an example of him, but if they wanted to do that, why not start with _us_." He waved vaguely at himself and Emily.

"I suppose," Emily echoed.

"Do they know?" Brocky asked. "It's not like Scavian has been going off on them this entire time."

"The burn heals when the royal line dies," Northway said. He looked a little less ashen after two sandwiches, although Emily could tell by the slant of his mouth that he was still in quite a lot of pain. He glanced at Brocky. "This is what happened to Denlander Warlocks. They'll know by now."

Emily could see the future unspooling. They would release Giles, because there was no reason to imprison a mage without magic. Giles would have nowhere to go, unless he wanted to go straight back to the family who didn't care too much about his survival. He'd end up in Grammaine and Emily would have to tell him the same convenient lie about an inept shooter and a ricochet.

Giles would want to bury the King. The Denlanders would, too, in all likelitude, if they only knew where his corpse lay. But if they knew that then they would inevitably figure out that she, Emily, had gone to meet him and some members of their Parliament would get _very_ insistent about solving the problem of Emily Marshwic.

"We have to get Mr Northway back to town," Emily said slowly. "We cannot allow Denlanders to know that he had anything at all to do with the death of the King." Lies upon lies, different lies to everyone. But this was tactics and she was capable enough at it. "We will have to bury the King. The Denlanders might know he was in the vicinity but they better not know how close he was to Grammaine" She sighed. "Brocky, you're taking Mr Northway. I'm going to wake Grant and we'll dig the grave. Tubal..."

"If anyone asks I'll tell them you went out riding because you couldn't bear the thought of Scavian being hanged," Tubal said. "And I'll go to shop as usual. It'll be believable."

"I can get to town on my own," Northway said.

"You absolutely cannot. Hell, Brocky, do you think you could do something about his ribs?"

Brocky grimaced. "Not my specialty."

"I _can_ manage, Miss Marshwic," Northway said. "As you said, you have to get me back to Chalcaster. People will believe that I have hidden from you for one day, but two will start to stretch imagination."

Emily nodded, because what else was there to do?

* * *

It worked. No one suspected anything. Northway got home early enough to be available when the Denlander guards came looking for him. It took them two days to conclusively prove that Giles was not a wizard any more, but they unchained him a lot earlier than that. He made his way to Grammaine and by then there was no dirt under Emily's nails, no proof that she had buried the King.

They all sat together in the drawing room that evening. It wasn't really the Survivors' Club without Mallen, but it was something, at least. Emily had no brandy. She did find a bottle of wine and four glasses. It sufficed.

Giles looked terrible. He had gotten thinner during his imprisonment, but it was the look in his eyes that made Emily's innards twist. Grief and failure and shock and feelings that Emily couldn't even begin to name.

Emily had read once about steel-making. Pure iron on its own was too malleable for most uses, so you had to add carbon to it to make steel. Add too much carbon and you got cast iron. Cast iron was not useless, far from it. But it was brittle in a way that steel was not. You could shatter cast iron if you hit it hard enough.

Giles had been hit very, very hard.

They didn't talk, really. It took Emily and Tubal and Brocky perhaps ten minutes to tell Giles the story of the King having died from a ricochet and after that the silence got heavy enough. Brocky had a deck of cards and they played three listless games, but there was no cheer in it.

"It wasn't your fault," Emily said afterwards, when she was showing Giles to a guest bedroom.

Giles said nothing.

"It was not," Emily insisted. "What could you have done, under lock and key and Denlander surveillance?"

"I don't know," Giles whispered, finally. "But now the King is dead. There must have been something, surely." He shook his head and took the candle from her. "Thank you. And I'm sorry."

"There's nothing to apologize for," Emily said. "Good night, Giles."

"Good night," he echoed.

Emily went to her own bedroom and undressed in the dark. The sheets felt oddly cold for this time of year. She lay down, stared at the ceiling and wondered if there had ever been a world where she could have chosen Giles Scavian. But no, that was unfair. She could have, back when she was only Miss Emily Marshwic and never Ensign Marshwic, let alone Lieutenant. Back when the world was golden and simple and there were clear heroes and villains. There was a world where Giles Scavian could have lived and she could have loved him without any complications at all.

That world had been a casualty of the war. Now people thought of her as a hero and yet she had killed the king. Northway – _Cristan_ – had kept Chalcaster from the worst of the war, but he was considered a villain, even more than he had been before. This was not a world for cast-iron people.

 _Your obedient villain_ , Cristan had once written. Emily remembered that first letter, the careful, guarded dramatism of his words. Cristan never broke. He only bent under the pressure and that did not feel like such a bad trait any more. It had kept Chalcaster safe enough and her family well-fed enough and herself sane enough. And… it wasn't as if he was venal through and through. When it came down to it, he was _her_ villain. That meant something.

He would change. He absolutely wouldn't make it easy, would in fact argue all the way as if he were a fencer and the words his rapier, but the truth was that he had already done several arguably heroic things for her. This was the thing about his malleability: she'd have as much influence as anyone and more than most.

It felt like too much power. But was it, really, when he had given it to her? Was it, really, when he was the closest to an equal she had had in a long while?

* * *

She went to Chalcaster the day after, early enough that most of Grammaine was still sleeping. The Mayor-Governor was already in his office and the Denlander guards did not stop her when she went to him.

"Miss Marshwic," he said. "How may I help you?" The bruises on his face had turned colourful, yellowing at the edges. Emily noted the careful way he held himself. His ribs were still hurting, then.

"Emily," she corrected, and did not miss the avid expression that flitted across his face. Back to first names, after all the tumult of these past weeks. "How is your health?" she asked.

He shrugged a little. "I have been better. I have also been worse. My ribs are supposedly healing. As for the face, well, you can see it yourself."

"How did you explain it? I assume people asked."

"You would be surprised. No one has. Denlanders are either too polite or believe that I, ah, got in an altercation with you or your household over the king's wizard. They have noticed your zeal in visiting him. Our beloved compatriots believe someone else in the town gave me my just desserts, which I suppose is not strictly wrong. But no, no one has asked outright."

"They think _I_ would hit you?" Emily couldn't believe it. She was a gentlewoman and gentlewomen usually did not have reputations for hitting people. Although she was also the supposed war hero and who knew what war heroes did in the minds of people who had never been to war.

He smiled, not without compassion. "But of course they think that. You are the fierce heroine of Levant. As for me, the Denlanders would have to be blind to not notice how unpopular I am in Chalcaster at the moment. They are a logical people and according to logic, if I gave you sufficient cause you would punch me in the face."

Emily took a deep breath. "That's absurd. I would not."

"I hope so, yes," he said, and there was the naked honesty. "I don't think I could bear it, especially in my current state." He gestured at his face.

"Cristan," she said, half censure, half helpless bite of laughter.

He smiled at that, then sobered. "I… was quite afraid, Emily. Afraid that you would find Mr Scavian more to your taste, even after all that happened. I knew he would have nowhere else to go besides your little military club in Grammaine. As for me, well, I am not an able horseman under current circumstances, so I couldn't ride there and provoke you into an intellectual argument."

Emily shook her head. "No. I meant what I said. I did what I did for you, not him." She sighed, stood up, started pacing back and forth. The words spilled out like the water over a too-low dam in spring. "I wish this were easier. I wish I did not have to convince my sisters and Chalcaster and the whole world that I didn't get concussed one too many times on the front. This never would have been easy, but now…" she made a frustrated noise, because the words did not suffice any more. "I will have to convince them all that I want you because I want you, not out of some misplaced gratitude or… or whatever they will think."

"You _want_ me?" Cristan said, sounding mildly strangled.

Emily stopped. "Well, yes. I thought that was what I said."

"What you said, Emily, was, I quote, that you did what you did for me, not him. That sentence was rather less forward, I might remark."

"I believe you are interpreting my words in a _remarkably_ improper manner."

"I am not interpreting anything. I am merely asking clarifications on what I heard with my two ears."

"I don't think I was unclear."

"I suppose not." He hesitated. "I must assume you have then had enough time to consider my confession. You would hardly speak of wanting me if you hadn't."

Emily took a deep breath and walked around his desk to stand by him. He looked up at her and there was no deception in his face, no restraint, only honest hope. She went down on one knee, left hand on the armrest of his chair and touched his cheekbone with her right hand, mindful of the bruises. His eyes went wider and darker at that.

"I have considered your confession," she said. He leaned into her touch as if he were helpless against it. His skin was warm under her hand.

"Emily," he said.

She kissed him. He went stock still for a moment and then he kissed her back, careful and light, but Emily couldn't help but to think he would be much less restrained in other circumstances, if they weren't in his office and he wasn't still injured and this wasn't their first kiss. He raised his hand carefully, slid his fingers through her still-short hair and Emily wished the circumstances were different, because it made goosebumps run down her back.

"I'm in love with you, too," she said when they broke apart. "I couldn't tell you when I realized it, but I have been for a while, I think."

He said nothing, only rested his forehead against hers for a moment. Emily wasn't used to this much honesty from him, without a trace of sardonicism.

"You're right," he finally said. "This will not be easy."

"Nothing is, these days," she said. "We will manage, though."


End file.
